GSMA and Facebook have announced a joint initiative to connect billions of men and women globally who currently have no access to Internet-based communications services. The initiative will focus on reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of mobile, given that mobile will be the enabling technology for the vast majority of people in developing markets.
The activities undertaken by GSMA and Facebook will entail working with governments in developing markets to address key factors that have an impact on affordability and availability. The partnership will focus on creating a sustainable environment to incentivise mobile infrastructure investment and usage, as well as eliminating or reducing existing mobile-specific taxation or refraining from imposing new such tax regimes.
Together, GSMA and Facebook will address a range of other issues that will improve affordability and help to connect the world’s population to the Internet, such as maximising the availability of harmonised spectrum to drive mobile broadband adoption; evaluating the establishment of local Internet Exchange Points; fostering the development of local Internet content; and examining the effectiveness of Universal Service Funds.
Huawei has taken a shot at the English Premier League by becoming the official smartphone partner of league leaders Arsenal.
IMS Core Network deployments are edging up as operators put the necessary infrastructure and capacity in place for planned 2014 VoLTE launches, according to ABI Research.
Telecom New Zealand has launched a new 4G LTE network that can provide speeds of up to 150 Mb/s to mobile subscribers in parts of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Southeast Asia consumers bought 41.5 million smartphones, spending US$10.8 billion in the first three quarters of this year, according to GfK Asia.
India’s smartphone market grew an astounding 229 percent year-on-year in Q3. According to IDC’s APEJ Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 12.8 million smartphones in Q3 compared to 3.8 million units in the same period of 2012. Q3 also saw an increase of 28 percent over Q2.
ZTE has announced a strategic commitment to provide enhanced converged operations capabilities as a member of the Next Generation Mobile Network (NGMN). ZTE is collaborating with both its customers as well as NGMN, an alliance led by 22 of the largest international mobile network operators, via its Next Generation Converged Operations Requirements (NGCOR) project in order to meet and exceed current industry needs.
In four years’ time, your smartphone may be smarter than you. It will be able to predict your next move, next purchase or interpret actions based on what it knows, according to Gartner. This insight will be performed based on an individual’s data gathered using cognizant computing — the next step in personal cloud computing.
Customer experience management (CEM) has emerged as the top driver of telco IT investments in 2014, according to Ovum’s ICT Enterprise Insights. Telco IT spend is expected to reach US$60.7b by 2017, with investments geared towards telecoms infrastructure (cloud platforms, server virtualisation and BSS/OSS systems to support LTE implementations) and online channels to support customers’ increasingly digital lifestyles.
The numbers are clear. Big is getting more popular. Large screen smart phones (five-inch and above) accounted for 22 percent of the quarter billion smartphones shipped in Q3. This is the highest number ever and translates to a staggering 56 million units.
The HTC One has gotten a bigger brother — the 5.9-inch HTC One max. Just like the recently launched Apple iPhone 5S, the new smartphone has a fingerprint scan feature. Located on the back of the device, the fingerprint scanner allows users to lock or unlock the screen and quickly launch up to three favourite applications by assigning an individual finger to each.
3D printing, personal cloud, the Internet of Everything — these buzzwords today are expected to be among the top 10 strategic technology trends next year, according to Gartner.
After the first Samsung Galaxy Note 3 reached the hands of eager fans, one glaringky unwanted feature was spotted — the smartphone has region locked its SIM card.
Blackberry has agreed to be sold to Fairfax Financial Holdings for US$4.7 billion.
One billion smartphones are expected to be shipped this year, helping the global mobile phone market to rebound from just 1.2 percent growth in 2012 to 7.3, percent in 2013, according to IDC
Android’s smartphone mobile app revenues are projected to reach almost US$6.8 billion by the end of 2013, nearly doubling its revenues from the previous year, according to ABI Research.
Samsung and Apple grew smartphone shipment by 55 percent and 20 percent respectively to maintain first and second place in Q2, according to Canalys.
In an effort to make an impact in the smartphone market, Nokia seems to be banging the camera feature. Boasting a second generation 41 megapixel sensor, the new Nokia Lumia 1020 reinvents zoom, delivering more details than the eye can see so people can take photos first and frame later.
Yet another iteration of the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be making its debut in Singapore on Saturday. The 
